Banks are Evil Bastards

See, today was the day BRM was taking me over to Albury to become the proud owner of a shiny new iBook, with CD RW drive and DVD player and all sorts of other nifty things. And I had it, there, in its box in front of me, all ready to be taken home, along with the freebie mouse that's all strwberry-coloured and cute, and then I gave the man my credit card and...

Transaction Denied

I was annoyed, as you can guess. Mainly because I had transferred the required funds from my credit union account to the credit card several days ago. Or I thought I had. When I checked the ATM, there it was, still sitting in the credit union account and not in my credit card where it was supposed to be.

Grr.

I've done the Irate Phone Call thing to all three parties involved - the credit union, the credit card, adn the telephone banking system I use, and they say it will be cleared in a couple of days. Which means I have to wait until my next day off, Friday, to get my new toy. Bastards. And I'm going to have to call Dad and see if I can cadge a lift with him over there - good thing he has a doctor's appointment in Albury that day.

Grr. Anger.

Nothing like pleasant company to cheer yourself up...

*smiles* I'm in a much better mood now - David turned up just after I posted the last entry, and we spent the afternoon chatting about various things. We're going for a mountain bike ride on Friday (my next day off) - I just have to call him and arrange it, since I also had to arrange with Dad a lift into Albury to get my computer. Which is also all good - I did remember correctly, and Dad does have an appointment over there.

We also sorted out a day for putting up the garden shed. It's only been sitting there for six months, and the slab for two, so it's about bloody time! It means we can get BRM's racing bike out of the hallway, and the other bikes out of the front patio, so the place looks a little less like "Bikes R Us". One of the pitfalls of living with a bike mechanic and semi-pro racer - bikes all over the place.

It also means I can work on the garden, which may seem a bit pointless considering I'm intending to move out, but it needs to be done regardless, to improve the value of the place for my brother, and I like gardening. I like growing things, and the satisfaction you get from an afternoon spent getting your hands dirty. And there's no saying I won't get at least some benefit out of the veggies I intend planting - I can get tomato seedlings from the nursery and have tomatoes all through summer. The snow peas are already going great guns - I have to put another wire up to stop them falling over.

I also managed some more work on the third short story comp entry. I don't think I'm going to have time to get it betaed - the closing date is this Friday - so I'll have to get my act together and see if I can finish it as well as I can on my own. I've sent off one - it's not my best, but the subject has some public appeal - and the other has had its second draft. Just waiting on some more (if any) comments from the beta peoples. No worries if I don't hear - I'll just send it off as is, it's better than the first draft.